Neurointervention Expert Quietly Founded Company, Breaking Through in the Billion-Dollar Potential Robotic Surgery Market

In 2021, the value of the vascular interventional surgical robotics sector began to emerge, attracting investors eager to invest. That year, 11 financing rounds poured into this sector, with a total amount nearing RMB 1.4 billion, accompanied by breakthroughs in vascular interventional surgical robots. As clinical trials for various companies gradually completed, the sector showed signs of improvement.

It is precisely amid this rising tide of development surrounding vascular interventional surgical robots that a company founded independently by physicians has quietly emerged.

Just one month ago, Beijing Wansi Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Wansi Medical”) developed by its controlled subsidiary, Yidu Hebei Robot Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Yidu Medical”),“The Cerebrovascular Interventional Surgery Assistance System” has successfully received approval from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for market launch, becoming the first domestically produced vascular interventional surgery robot approved by the NMPA in China.。

Many people are starting to wonder: where did this “dark horse” come from?

In fact, as early as 2017, Professor Li Youxiang, a neurointerventional expert at Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University (hereinafter referred to as “Tiantan Hospital”) and founder of Vans Medical, led the National Key R&D Program project titled “Industrialization and Demonstration Application Research of High-Precision Minimally Invasive Vascular Intervention Surgical Robots,” conducting exploratory research on related applications. The research, development, and industrialization of Vans Medical’s vascular interventional surgical robot were both spearheaded by Professor Li Youxiang. After achieving certain research outcomes, Yidu Medical, the entity responsible for commercializing the project’s results, was established in 2018 at the Baoding Zhongguancun Innovation Base, and nearly 20 patents were filed and approved.

Although the project was little known at the time, the company subsequently achieved rapid breakthroughs in key technologies and developed a novel minimally invasive vascular interventional surgical robot system, laying the foundation for its clinical application. In 2020, it successfully performed “China’s first robot-assisted whole-cerebral angiography” at Beijing Tiantan Hospital, which received public coverage from the Beijing Municipal Health Commission and Science and Technology Daily.

At that time, the company had already gained a modest reputation within the industry.

Subsequently, the company accelerated its development, successfully conducting multicenter clinical trials for a neurovascular interventional surgical robot in 2021. One year later, it received acceptance from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for the Class III medical device registration of its vascular interventional surgical robot. The “Cerebrovascular Interventional Surgery Assistance Operating System,” recently approved for market launch by Wansi Medical, is a research and development achievement supported by the National Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology. The progress made by Wansi Medical to this point has not been achieved overnight.

Vascular interventional surgery is a procedure that demands extremely high precision and relies heavily on the operator’s technical skills.

A vascular interventional procedure requires not only that the physician clearly define the vascular access route, perform appropriate angiography, and confirm the location, nature, and severity of the lesion preoperatively, but also that the operator construct a three-dimensional model of the vasculature by integrating two-dimensional vascular images with their own anatomical knowledge. Only then can they ultimately rely on tactile feedback and experience to navigate catheters and guidewires through the patient’s narrow, tortuous vessels—with extremely thin vascular walls—within the neurovascular system, reaching the lesion site for surgical intervention.

Due to the high technical threshold of the procedure itself, clinical practice has long struggled to improve the precision and long-term outcomes of vascular interventional surgeries. Medical personnel are required to invest substantial time and effort to master this technique, while physicians face the risk of prolonged exposure to high-dose radiation during these procedures.

Vascular interventional surgical robots are precisely positioned to address the aforementioned pain points.

It not only quantifies and standardizes physicians’ experience and procedural data, thereby reducing inter-operator variability in surgical performance. It also shortens the learning curve for interventional physicians, enabling rapid skill acquisition, further promoting the widespread adoption of interventional procedures across hospitals at all levels, and reducing societal healthcare costs. Leveraging 5G technology, interventional physicians from different geographic locations can perform high-precision interventions, and even conduct remote surgeries, thereby avoiding radiation exposure and minimizing the risk of cross-infection. For these reasons, clinical attention has increasingly focused on the development and application of vascular interventional surgical robots in recent years.

The approval of VAS HERO, the cerebrovascular interventional surgery assistance system independently developed by Wansi Medical, represents the company’s response to unmet clinical needs and sends a positive signal to both domestic and international markets.

When discussing the product design philosophy,Li Jin, Chief Operating Officer of Vans Medical, believes that the key to the development of vascular interventional surgical robots lies in “whether the product can effectively address clinical problems,” and summarizes this into three points:

First, the importance of industrial R&D cannot be overlooked.Products must demonstrate stability, safety, and efficacy, while enterprises need to address practical challenges such as cost control and supply chain establishment;

Second, research is conducted around clinical needs.Rooted in clinical practice, we employ practical techniques to solve real-world problems, rather than “showing off” our skills.

Third, rapid iteration.Each generation of products must solidly start by addressing one type of surgery and one disease, achieving comprehensive coverage of all surgical types through rapid iteration, rather than pursuing an overly ambitious, all-encompassing product in a single step.

Based on this philosophy,VAS HERO adopts a novel master-slave multi-device coordinated motion design, enabling physicians to perform cerebrovascular interventional procedures from a separate control room., while also enabling high-precision positioning and extending the surgeon’s operative movements with millimeter-level motion accuracy.

ForTo address challenges such as machine push speed, force limitations, the inability to directly measure remote manipulation push resistance, and haptic feedback, Wansi Medical has also conducted extensive research and clinical trials for system calibration.Compared with traditional surgical procedures, this surgical robot can effectively enhance the safety, stability, and precision of operations. It also addresses issues related to non-standardization, allows physicians to retain their existing operational experience, significantly reduces the difficulty of surgical procedures, shortens the learning curve for surgeons, and helps alleviate the imbalance in medical resource distribution.

In addition, the product alsoResolved issues related to guidewire and catheter bending, as well as tracking and coordination.. It enables all basic maneuvers in vascular interventional procedures, including the delivery and rotation of catheters and guidewires, simulation of physician actions such as grasping, advancing, and torqueing catheters and wires, as well as fluid injection.The scope of the procedure covers the entire workflow of vascular interventional surgery. This lays the foundation for the subsequent development of robots capable of performing all types of vascular interventional procedures, as well as for building a platform-level solution for pan-vascular interventional robotics.

“R&D of medical devices must not be ‘technology-centric’; clinical needs and applications are fundamental.”

During the development of VAS HERO, Professor Li Youxiang repeatedly emphasized the importance of integrating product development with clinical practice. This has also been the key to Wansi Medical’s ability to rapidly identify the right R&D direction and iterate interventional robotic products that truly meet clinical needs.

Indeed, vascular interventional surgical robots are the product of integrating technologies from multiple fields, including artificial intelligence, mechanics, electrical engineering, bionics, and image-guided navigation. During the research and development process, challenges such as the integration of technical modules and overall system coordination must be addressed and overcome. Nevertheless, all medical devices must be developed with clinical needs at their core.

For vascular interventional surgical robots, the most critical factor remains whether the product focuses on clinical value and truly addresses clinical pain points.Only through close collaboration with clinical practice, coupled with rapid adjustments to product design and parameters based on clinical feedback and continuous product iteration, can companies develop products that better align with physicians’ usage habits, offering enhanced usability and practicality, thereby establishing critical competitive barriers for the enterprise.

The birth of VAS HERO stems from the Wansi Medical team’s years of insight into clinical needs, as well as product trial-and-error and iteration based on these clinical insights and applications. In Li Jin’s words, “WanSi Medical’s comprehensive solutions for vascular intervention are designed by physicians, for physicians.”

Professor Li Youxiang, a core member of the Vans Medical team, is among the first generation of interventional radiologists and has accumulated over 30 years of clinical medical experience.Under the National Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology, titled “Research on Industrialization and Demonstration Application of High-Precision Minimally Invasive Vascular Interventional Surgical Robots,” Professor Li Youxiang has engaged in comprehensive collaboration with Beijing Tiantan Hospital to explore the development of related equipment.

Based on its clear insight into clinical needs, as well as the continuous exploration and iteration of its products in the clinical laboratory of Tiantan Hospital, Wansi MedicalIdentifying “neurointervention” as the breakthrough point, the company prioritized “angiography,” the most prevalent procedure in neurovascular interventional therapy, as the focus for its first-generation product development., aiming to address the most urgent clinical application needs.

Li Jin believes that the delicate and tortuous nature of neurovascular structures, combined with long operative pathways and the use of diverse materials, imposes higher requirements on the stability of surgical maneuvers. Due toNeurointerventional procedures are highly complex and carry significant risks, making robotic assistance increasingly essential at this stage.From the perspective of clinical application,Angiography accounts for a significant proportion of neurointerventional procedures, with strong demand from hospitals. Furthermore, given its simplicity and high repetitiveness, this procedure is better suited for device-assisted operation.From the perspective of regulatory review and approval, it is more critical for products to undergo gradual development in the initial stages and to iterate rapidly.Selecting directions that meet clinical needs and are technologically feasible offers greater operability.Selecting angiography as the starting point for R&D is undoubtedly the right choice, and this was also the direction for vascular interventional robot development first proposed by Vans Medical. Based on this foundation, Vans Medical will be better positioned to iterate its products and enhance their functionality.

As Li Jin recognizes, in vascular interventional procedures, particularly in neurointerventions, physicians typically need to coordinate the use of multiple guidewires and catheters to perform the surgery. Additionally, repeated angiographic imaging via catheter manipulation is required during the procedure to monitor device positioning and assess vascular conditions. Only through precise and standardized puncture and angiography techniques can physicians obtain high-quality angiographic images. In interventional surgeries, angiography and diagnostic processes account for 70%–80% of the total operative time, reflecting a significant unmet clinical need.

If vascular interventional surgical robots cannot broadly accommodate procedures ranging from angiography to therapy, while simultaneously enabling multi-device coordinated manipulation, bedside team collaboration may still be required, preventing physicians from truly avoiding radiation exposure. In such cases, the value of vascular interventional surgical robots would be significantly diminished.

Guided by the team’s insights into clinical needs and through repeated trial-and-error, iteration, and refinement in clinical trials, Vansi Medical ultimately chose “neurointervention” and “angiography” as its starting points. The approval of VAS HERO serves as the strongest validation of the correctness of this strategic direction.

The vascular interventional surgery robot sector is a robotic track with billions in potential.

However, the reality is stark: globally, only Siemens’ CorPath 200 and CorPath GRX have obtained both FDA clearance and CE marking; Robotcath’s R-One (a collaborative project with MicroPort MedBot) has received CE marking; and Johnson & Johnson’s Sensei X2 and Stereotaxis’ Genesis RMN have secured FDA approval.

The approval of VAS HERO is an encouragement for both the industry and Wansi Medical.

Apart from VAS HERO, currentlyThe company plans to launch a neurovascular surgical robot application integrating image reconstruction and intravascular ultrasound technology.By leveraging preoperative planning, intraoperative prevention of hazardous maneuvers, and intelligent postoperative data assessment to assist clinicians in performing higher-quality surgeries,Ultimately achieving full-process AI integration for interventional surgeries under physician supervision, as well as 5G-enabled remote surgeries, to support tiered diagnosis and treatment.

Moving forward, Vans Medical will continue to deepen product development through multi-center collaborative studies centered on clinical needs, and will upgrade and refine its product pipeline in the future through continuous iterations.Building an Ecosystem for Vascular Interventional Surgery to Promote the Industrialization of Vascular Interventions. Meanwhile, strengthen R&D and independent innovation, and launchVAS COACH Surgical Simulation Cabin, by fully simulating the scenario of surgeons operating robots during surgery, it facilitates simulation-based training for surgeons and helps cultivate medical talent for the industry. It also professionalizes the accompanying software and hardware to createInterventional Consumables for Precision-Navigated Vascular Interventional Robots。

Reference Article:

1. “The Dark Horse in a Multi-Billion Dollar Market: Vascular Interventional Surgical Robots Will Become the Next Hotspot”

2. "Research Report on Vascular Interventional Surgical Robots"